T.I. is once again butting heads with Black conservative leader Candace Owens. In the past, T.I. has critiqued Owens for her support of Trump and controversial views on systematic racism and now, the rapper seems to have lost hope for her.

T.I. recently sat down with Nick Cannon on Power 106 FM to discuss his role as a community leader and activist in Atlanta. The conversation turned to the nature of cancel culture, which T.I. experienced after being slammed for his views on his daughter’s virginity. T.I. said that the Black community must come together to uplift each other rather than discredit one another for having conflicting views. “We don’t all have the same views,” he said. “We don’t all have the same opinions of how to move forward on what’s gonna get us to our goal. But we all have the same fight. We’re all on the same journey.”

But T.I. said he draws the line of understanding at Owens. “Some severe cases, like Candace Owens, she got to go,” Tip said. “She can’t come.” T.I. even went so far as to say Owens is being paid off to discredit the experiences of Black individuals. “Somebody paid her to come out here against speak out against what the majority of us is standing for,” he said. “She ain’t a double agent, she’s their agent. You mean to tell me there’s no injustice against people of color you’ve ever seen, that you could speak out for? That white people are always right? You telling me law enforcement is always right? You telling me the United States of America has always been right when dealing with us? And that’s her story. You can’t trust that story because we have facts that show us otherwise.”

Cannon agreed, saying she doesn’t always stick to the facts and T.I. offered his explanation: “When this young lady was in college, something happened to her, an attack,” the rapper continued. “She called out to the community, and she got justice in her case. Ever since then, she seems to have forgotten that she’s black. She has turned in her black card and crossed over.”

This isn’t the first time T.I. has argued with Candace Owens over her views. At last September’s Revolt summit, T.I. fired back at Owens’ praise of Trump’s “make America great again” slogan. “When you say ‘make America great again,’ which period are we talking about?” he asked. “The period when women couldn’t vote, the period when we were hanging from trees, or the crack era? Which period in America are you trying to make America like again?”

Watch T.I. give his thoughts on Candace Owens and Terry Crews on Power 106 FM above.

The gaming community within the NBA is steadily growing, with the league’s hiatus only helping to give players more time to refine their skills on the sticks without basketball taking up so much of their time. J.R. Smith, for example, has long been an avid gamer, growing up with “Nintendos and Ataris” but has really gotten involved in recent years with the boom in online gaming.

“Where it got to the multiplayer level and being able to play online, it just blows things out of the water,” Smith told Dime. “But I’ve always been into games, like ever since as long as I can remember I spent like four, five hours a day playing video games.”

While he continues working out to be ready for a hopeful NBA return next season, Smith is also taking this down time to game more and joined the Call of Duty League’s New York Subliners to stream Warzone on the CDL’s channels a few weeks back. Smith held his own with the pros, but said it was a humbling experience to see how far he has to go to become an elite gamer.

After the stream, Smith spoke with Dime about the experience, the communal aspect of gaming, why quarantine has been so hard for him, thoughts on The Last Dance, and why he wants people to stop comparing greats like LeBron, Kobe, and Jordan and just appreciate what they all have brought to the NBA.

How was the stream and what’s it like playing with pro Call of Duty players?

Man that sh*t was dope, man. Because for me, playing with them is like regular people playing basketball with me. So, like, as a person who really watched people’s YouTubes and streams to try and get better at the game — and I feel like I’m an avid gamer — it’s like being a kid in a candy store playing with a bunch of pros. Like, I’m used to playing with my boys, and it’s just like, some people’s skill levels just aren’t there, some people’s attention span just isn’t there, and at the level that I would like to play at, it’s just refreshing. At the same time, it’s humbling, cause I’m like, “I got a long way to go.”

When you play with pro gamers, what are the things you’re able to pick up and see as the differences between what they do and their approach compared to a casual gamer?

Well, when I was asking them about the keys — there’s certain keys you can get to go in the bunkers and stuff like that, and they don’t even go for those. They just going for kills and wins. Now, we’re playing to try and reach a certain goal, but sometimes you get caught up in going for certain parts of the game and it gets all strategic. But when you play with them, they’re going for straight kills and kill as many opponents as they can, and at a high rate as well. One person can go over there and get two or three kills or even a whole team wiped, and it’s like, just one person on one side. On the team I play with, the whole team has to go over and fight the other team.

Are there guys in the NBA you enjoy playing with? I talked to Devin Booker about some of the guys he plays with and know a lot of guys play. Who are some of your favorite guys in the league to play with, cause I know there’s an avid gaming community in the NBA?

You know what’s funny, I never really played with guys , not Call of Duty. I played 2K with Kyrie before and stuff like that, but I’ve never played Call of Duty with any of those NBA guys. I think they running from me.

I see you’ll hop on social media at times and see if fans want to play online with you, whether it’s COD or 2K. Do you feel like gaming has helped you build more of a connection with fans and how important is having that sense of community, especially over the last few months where we’ve all been isolating and under stay-at-home orders?

Yeah man, it’s funny because for me it’s a blessing in disguise with all this staying at home and everybody being on games and stuff like that. It’s like, all my friends are back home in a tough neighborhood, and you know, when you go outside you can get in trouble and other things. So having my friends being online consistently has been huge for me. So that’s what’s been my main focus, honestly, is just trying to get my game up. Trying to get my channels poppin’ so people can tune in and see what’s going on, just watching and kicking it.

How have you been holding up these last few months? I know you’ve got some young ones running around and that’s always an adventure, but you’re also training and trying to keep in shape. What’s the isolation period been like for you?

It’s tough, man. So I’ve been in L.A. I actually just got back from New Jersey yesterday, and I’ve been in L.A. for the previous three months before that, and I hadn’t seen my kids cause they’re in New Jersey. So it’s been tough because of the travel situation and stuff like that, not knowing what’s going to happen and schools and everything being closed. So it’s been tough for me because I’m all the way out here and my kids are in Jersey, and the fact that I’m out here training and stuff, and they’re just finally home. They’re out of school and have all this free time, and I gotta miss months of that because of something like this cause airports were shut down for so long and I couldn’t travel, and you didn’t know if you could actually go outside and if you’d catch it or not. So it kinda spooked me a lot with that, so it’s been crazy.

I do want to talk a little basketball. Any player on a championship team has a special connection to a city and its fans, but especially so in a place like Cleveland winning the first title the city’s seen in decades. How would you describe your relationship with Cleveland and Cavs fans after that 2016 title?

I mean our connection is just remarkable, man. Just the team and the city, was just a perfect fit. Especially going in as an underdog to Golden State, just a big powerhouse in the West, won so many games and stuff like that, and Cleveland being a blue-collar city, you know, hard work and hard-nosed, and we were that team in the East — diving for loose balls, getting loose balls, and playing physical — so it kinda coincided so well. Even now, we get so much love and so much strength when we go back.

Do you still have a shirtless JR t-shirt?

[Laughs] I still have a few, but I don’t wear ‘em. My mom will give ‘em out for family and stuff like that and the kids.

I know you were watching The Last Dance what were your biggest takeaways from that and all the Jordan footage we got out of it?

Man, from watching all of the tapes growing up — Come Fly With Me, all those — and then watching this, it kinda felt sad because it was a capping of his legacy. You know, he’s already in the Basketball Hall of Fame and all that, and then he finally comes out with the documentary and it’s the last thing that we ever see or hear from Michael Jordan from like himself and out of his words. I took it like it was kind of sad seeing something that I didn’t really think about until it actually came out and I actually watched it, because obviously with the anticipation of it coming out everyone was like, “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Let’s see it, let’s see it.”

And now, when I was watching it, it was just like, some of the stories and stuff like that it was like, damn, that’s exactly what happened. That’s it? That’s no more Bulls nothing? Y’all gonna stop showing highlights or something? What’s going on?

The practice footage was really interesting and a rare look for fans at that part of the NBA. No one is compared to Jordan more than LeBron, but when people talk about that hyper-competitive style they talk about Jordan and then Kobe, but I know LeBron has that kind of drive even if the public facing image doesn’t show that as much. How would you describe what LeBron was like in those moments, in those closed door settings and practices, because he’s also a super-competitive person?

I mean, for one, LeBron practiced every day. So whenever people always try to talk about the rest thing and stuff like that, for the miles that he’s done and still to compete with his peers day-in and day-out on a game level as well as in practice, there’s a lot to be said for that. And then just the way he attacks the game with his mentality. He knows he’s great, but his greatest aspect is he knows how to play the game the right way. Now Jordan, in my eyes he’s the GOAT, he attacked it like, I’m going to win this game or I’m going to get us over the top every single time. And Bron’s mindset is, the team’s going to get us over the top every single time.

I understand in a way, any other time someone like Kobe, they would always say, “Kobe’s selfish. He’s this, he’s that,” before the last couple months and a year and a half seeing Kobe off the court. Nobody was, like, the biggest Kobe fan as far as his mentality and his quote-unquote “person off the court” cause they didn’t know him. Everyone was scared of him and thought he was just this wild, vicious person that was just a fierce competitor, and they didn’t know until unfortunately after the situation that he was a great person, a great dad, he had a great family, he coached his daughter’s team, stuff like that. So it’s just stipulations come out through people’s careers because we only see them for that two and a half hours on the court or on TV and we just judge them off of that instead of knowing them as a person.

Like, Jordan’s so high on a pedestal people feel they can’t relate to him. When this guy first came into the league he got a regular apartment, he drives a regular car, and does regular things just like everyone else. It just so happened he excelled and was so amazing at what he did that people put him on a pedestal to where they try to tear him down as much as they possibly can. And within all of the greatness we seen from The Last Dance all you hear is, “Oh well he called Horace Grant a snitch,” and this and this, and creates so much turmoil within it, and then you compare legacies. It’s like, why can’t we appreciate what his greatness was and what he created, because realistically, he paved the way for so many — more than anybody in basketball history he paved the way. He changed everything. So why can’t we just respect him for that instead of trying to compare his greatness to anything else? I think that’s the biggest thing I took away.

To bring it full circle, you mention fans don’t get a chance to get to know athletes through the games. Like, you see what you see, but is that something that you like about when you have these avenues like Twitch streaming and fans get the chance to see you off the court, talking, being a regular person and doing things regular folks do. Is that something where you think gaming and being able to stream is something that can help bridge that divide a little bit?

A hundred percent, especially with gaming. So many kids and so many people are playing a game. I think I seen this a week or two ago where like, 60 million people are playing Call of Duty. I mean, you come in contact with so many different people and so many walks of life. I’ve created some great friendships that I truly value off of playing video games and stuff. It’s crazy because for so long you heard your parents saying, “Get out of the house, stop playing video games,” and there’s like, 13-year-olds making millions of dollars playing Fortnite. Like what are you going to tell him? You going to tell him to go to college? I made a million dollars, what are you going to say? You gotta clean your room? Mom I just bought this big ass house, I’ll get a maid and everything else, you gonna tell me to clean my room?

[Editor’s Note: This interview was edited and condensed for clarity]

Last week, fencing went up around the White House as an increased security measure to keep protestors and demonstrators who were marching to end police violence from getting too close to the building. In the days since, the fencing has become a memorial wall to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, and other black Americans who have died because of bigotry. Now, as the Secret Service and U.S. Park Police begin removing the fencing, the Smithsonian is rushing to the scene to collect what it views as historic artwork.

In a series of tweets documenting the moment, Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson shared video footage on Wednesday morning of curators from the Smithsonian and National Museum of African American History and Culture as they toured the crowd-sourced art gallery in the D.C. streets looking for notable works to photograph and preserve.

“This is a really important moment,” says Dr. Dwandalyn Reece, the executive committee chair of the NMAAHC.

Speaking to DCist, Kai Gamanya — a protestor who hung a painting of a raised fist flanked by a crown and pyramid on the fence –described the art gallery as a moving, saying “It’s like the whole nation is crying, and this whole fence is crying.”

The scene around the fencing is truly something to behold. Take a look at some of the posters below.

As Wu-Tang Clan continues to expand its entertainment empire into television and film, many fans still speculate about the status of the group’s music, often wondering when a new Wu-Tang album might be in the cards. The topic was addressed by RZA, the Clan’s de facto head, on the latest episode of Rick Rubin’s Broken Record podcast. When the host asked RZA about his current relationship with the rest of the pioneering supergroup, RZA’s answer was — much like the rest of Wu-Tang’s long history together — complicated.

“We are a brotherhood,” RZA replied, maintaining that although the group has its internal disagreements, they all share respect and love for one another. “Look, my best example Rick is that I got a lawsuit, U-God is suing me, right? And this lawsuit has been going on for three years. And we were in Australia, last year. They did a Wu-Tang tour in Australia [at] the Syndey Opera House, and he gets there and his credit card isn’t working. So I took my credit card, put him in a suite, and took care of everything for him. And then GZA’s like ‘Only Wu could do that. This ni**a’s suing you, and you’re feeding him and lending him money.’ I said [that’s] business, I love this man.’ I love my brothers, man.”

RZA credits their long history together with keeping them close, noting that their relationship is unusual in hip-hop. “Wu-Tang wasn’t just a bunch of guys…a lot of these bands, maybe two guys know each other. This is a group of men who, at minimum, [have] 25-30 year relationships. Me and Raekwon go back to the third grade… and that part of it permeates and seems to trump anything else.”

Watch RZA’s insightful interview with Rick Rubin above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Soccer Mommy released her sophomore album Color Theory in late February, but her touring plans were thrown off course due to the pandemic. As a result, Soccer Mommy has been thinking up creative ways to stay engaged with fans. The singer recently shared a series of 8-bit videos tailored to different cities that she had to cancel shows in. Now, Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison is working with other indie musicians to raise money for charity through music.

Allison began her Soccer Mommy & Friends Singles Series as a way to raise funds while also collaborating with other artists. For the second set of singles, Allison tapped breakout songwriter Beabadoobee. This time, the two recorded stripped-down demos of some of their music. Allison opted to re-record her Color Theory track “Night Swimming,” while Beabadoobee revisited her song “If You Want To.” Each of the singles are shared to Soccer Mommy’s Bandcamp page, and all net proceeds will be split between Oxfam’s COVID-19 relief fund and National Bail Out, a Black-led organization working to end mass incarceration.

In the first set of singles for her series, Allison worked with Jay Som to share covers of each other’s music. Jay Som pulled from Color Theory to give a haunting rendition of the album’s lead single “Lucy.” For Soccer Mommy’s cover, Allison opted to re-examine Jay Som’s early discography, covering her 2016 breakout track “I Think You’re Alright.”

After working with Jay Som and Beabadoobee, Allison has already confirmed more artists to be a part of the series. Allison will team up with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Beach Bunny’s Lili Trifilio for the next set of singles.

Listen to Beabadoobee cover “Night Swimming” and Soccer Mommy offer a rendition of “Night Swimming” here.

Color Theory is out now via Loma Vist. Get it here.

Country group Lady Antebellum formed back in 2006, and since then, they have become titans of the genre, releasing a handful of multi-Platinum albums that have topped the charts. However, in these times of change, the band has just announced a big one: They have changed their name to Lady A, a nickname that has long been used by their fans.

The band explained in a lengthy message that they removed “Antebellum” from their name because, while their intention with the word was for it to represent a style of architecture from the late 1700s and early 1800s, that pre-Civil War period of history was defined by slavery in the southern US. They wrote:

“When we set out together almost 14 years ago, we named out band after the Southern ‘antebellum’ style home where we took our first photos. As musicians, it reminded us of all the music born in the South that influenced us… southern rock, blues, R&B, gospel and of course country. But we are regretful and embarrassed to say that we did not take into account the associations that weigh down this word referring to the period of history before the Civil War, which includes slavery. We are deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused and for anyone who has felt unsafe, unseen or unvalued. Causing pain was never our hearts’ intention, but it doesn’t change the fact that indeed, it did just that. So today, we speak up and make a change. We hope you will dig in and join us.”

They also note that they have no excuse for why it took them so long to make this change, but acknowledging the issue and correcting it is all they can do now.

Read the band’s full statement below.

“Dear fans,

As a band, we have strived for our music to be a refuge…inclusive of all. We’ve watched and listened more than ever these last few weeks, and our hearts have been stirred with conviction, our eyes opened wide to the injustices, inequality and biases Black women and men have always faced and continue to face everyday. Now, blindspots we didn’t even know existed have been revealed.

After much personal reflection, band discussion, prayer and many honest conversations with some of our closest Black friends and colleagues, we have decided to drop the word ‘Antebellum’ from our name and move forward as Lady A, the nickname our fans gave us almost from the start.

When we set out together almost 14 years ago, we named out band after the Southern ‘antebellum’ style home where we took our first photos. As musicians, it reminded us of all the music born in the South that influenced us… southern rock, blues, R&B, gospel and of course country. But we are regretful and embarrassed to say that we did not take into account the associations that weigh down this word referring to the period of history before the Civil War, which includes slavery. We are deeply sorry for the hurt this has caused and for anyone who has felt unsafe, unseen or unvalued. Causing pain was never our hearts’ intention, but it doesn’t change the fact that indeed, it did just that. So today, we speak up and make a change. We hope you will dig in and join us.

We understand that many of you may ask the question ‘Why have you not made this change until now?’ The answer is that we can make no excuse for our lateness to this realization. What we can do is acknowledge it, turn from it and take action.

We feel like we have been awakened, but this is just one step. There are countless more that need to be taken. We want to do better. We are committed to examining our individual and collective impact and making the necessary changes to practice antiracism. We will continue to educate ourselves, have hard conversations and search the parts of our hearts that need pruning — to grow into better humans, better neighbors. Our next outward step will be a donation to the Equal Justice Initiative through LadyAid. Our pray is that if we lead by example…with humility, love, empathy and action…we can be better allies to those suffering from spoken and unspoken injustices, while influencing out children and generations to come.

Love,

Lady A
Hillary, Chase & Dave.”

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It was about halfway through Artemis Fowl – a surprisingly short movie that is so confusing and so heavily edited it would be the equivalent if I cut every other paragraph of this review out and still expected you to follow what I was saying – where two things happened that caught my attention. The first was the movie had not stopped spewing information at me for a full 45 minutes. It felt like being in a western civ class and trying to catch up after missing the first four lectures. I felt like I should be taking notes. (Also, you know a movie has problems when it’s so confusing that literally being able to rewind doesn’t clear anything up.) Then it’s also right about this point that Josh Gad, playing a dwarf named Mulch, starts eating dirt, then shooting it out of his ass.

I would love to hear an explanation about why this movie is so bad. I mean, something happened. I love Kenneth Branagh movies! I thought his Murder on the Orient Express was a stellar return to the whodunit genre that Knives Out then cemented. But whatever Artemis Fowl is, it certainly doesn’t feel like a Kenneth Branagh movie. Something tells me he has a story.

Honestly, I could barely follow the plot of this film because it’s just nonstop exposition. The title character, Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), literally doesn’t leave his house until the last scene of the movie. (Though, I guess in that way, maybe it’s a profound plot point that Artemis, too, is working remotely from home.) I mention all this because I don’t want a ton of people who read the book to start tweeting at me about the plot. I am assuming the book is coherent. This movie is not. And I can only go off what was presented.

When the movie opens, we first meet Josh Gad’s Mulch, who is doing a voice that reminds me of The Albino in The Princess Bride before he clears his throat. And Mulch, well, doesn’t do much of anything for the first half of the movie except explain things to the audience. Most of this movie feels like the book is just being read to us, only skipping over just enough details that nothing makes sense.

An unnamed villain who wears a hood (spoiler, we never learn who this is supposed to be) kidnaps master thief Artemis Fowl Sr., played by Colin Farrell, who is in this movie for about five minutes. The villain wants this device, which resembles a golden acorn, that is in the possession of Artemis Sr. The Ferries, led by Judi Dench (I look forward to seeing the pictures of the Artemis Fowl wing of her estate) who live in the middle of the earth and also want the golden acorn because, if humans use it, it would be disastrous. Other than that, we never really learn what this device does. So, Artemis Jr. goes on a grand adventure to save his father, which, again, never gets beyond his house because every enemy just winds up coming to the house.

This is a movie that doesn’t care at all about character development. There’s no emotional investment whatsoever. At one point, a friend of Artemis’s dies and the movie thinks it’s this emotional beat and all I could think was that I barely knew this person. Then, before I had even processed what happened, that character is revived and is alive again. Great.

(I realize now that my explanation of the plot of this movie doesn’t make much sense. I admit this because in the first paragraph I made a joke about removing every other paragraph. I’m just putting this here to say that I didn’t actually do that.)

There’s a scene in this movie where Josh Gad’s Mulch infiltrates the Artemis Fowl house, then, with no explanation, teams up with the heroes. I rewound this three times looking for an explanation. Then I texted a colleague asking about this and he couldn’t figure it out either. It’s like whoever had the final edit of this movie cared more about it being short than making sense. The last movie I can remember that was edited in this rushed, highly exposition filled way was The Dark Tower.

It’s funny, a few weeks ago (maybe months, who knows at this point) I made a half-joking, half-serious joke that there aren’t any bad movies anymore. I still live in a city that’s closed to all entertainment, so the prospect of any new movie is nice. I am very easy to please right now. But, it turns out, I was wrong. There are still bad movies. (The good news is, if you have Disney +, this movie will cost you nothing extra.) So, in a weird way (a very weird way), it was almost comforting. It felt like a step toward normalcy.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

No first-person shooter can truly be defined as passive, but Disintegration is probably as close as you’ll get. That’s because the hybrid FPS is a game that hits consoles and PC on June 16 is trying to be several things at once, and its creators hope it has a place among a first-person shooter market that’s as competitive as ever. It’s fitting that in many ways the game’s plot mirrors V1 Interactive’s attempt to put real-time strategy elements into an FPS. It’s a game where humans are “Integrated” into robotic bodies in a world ravaged by disease and strife, only their organic brains remain protected in a metal case while the rest of them is now extremely recyclable.

Things go too far, however, and the evil robots take over — characters routinely call them “red eyes,” which is aesthetically and thematically convenient — leading to a resistance effort you must now help turn things around. To do that, you pilot a grav cycle, a hovering bike-like vehicle with weapons that helps you command a small crew of ground troops as you complete missions.

“We wanted that low barrier of entry but high skill ceiling,” said Blake Low, senior environment artist at V1 Interactive. “It takes you, you know, a round of two to figure out everything you’ve got available to you. But then putting it all together and expanding on that is when a new starts to click for you, when a game starts to click for you as a whole.”

It’s a first-person shooter that often plays — at least in its campaign mode — like you’re not the first person to shoot. Or not the best person for the job, anyway. The trick to Disintegration is to best direct your troops in the fight, not necessarily doing all of the fighting.

“It’s got that familiar pick up and looks like a first-person shooter feel to it. And you can familiarize yourself with that immediately but once you start to play with the interaction with the ground units, the crew you’re playing with and the different ways they compliment the graph cycle and the graph cycle compliments the composition of the team, all of that comes into play,” Low said. “I’d say this game is far more of a team based game reliant on the team as whole to succeed than most anything I’ve played recently.”

Playing Disintegration reminded me of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign where you’re playing a very support-oriented magic user, healing other members of your party and strategically watching the action go down rather than diving right into the fray for yourself. Healing is actually a big part of your job — a secondary healing weapon either shoots health packs directly at your troops or provides a healing halo from which you can benefit.

For some, that kind of gameplay will feel unnatural, or maybe even disillusioning. But it is certainly something different, and the game’s developers hope the audience is there for a distinctly different kind of FPS.

“The game is not going to be for everyone, and that’s fine,” Low said. “We’re really passionate about first-person shooters — a bunch of us coming from the Halo background. We want to build something but also want it to be fresh at the same time.”

Low described the RTS elements of Disintegration as an opportunity to change the game’s pace of play. Though you yourself only heal and have a primary weapon, the grav cycle is in charge of commanding your teammates’s special abilities such as grenades or mortar fire. When triggering those abilities, gameplay slows down a bit to allow for more precise aim. It also gives you some time to plan out your next move without pausing altogether and turning it into a turn-based slog.

“All of it naturally emerged together as we tried to make that first-person shooter-plus, whatever you want to tag it as,” Low said. “It does feel like a smooth first-person shooter but really adding that tactical element sometimes slows the game down, but it sometimes makes it chaotic and frenetic on purpose. That ebb and flow in how you react to the world.”

The campaign mode of any first-person shooter doubles as a tutorial of sorts, and Disintegration is no different. But it actually works in encouraging you to combine abilities and rewards you for completing Challenge Goals during the campaign with upgrade chips. You’re also more likely to find success in missions, and in multiplayer as a result. There’s a learning curve to understanding what’s being asked of you, but once you get into the rhythm of the game’s missions, it can be rewarding to see your abilities and team grow in power and find success.

That gameplay style doesn’t always mesh perfectly, and the disconnect might be too much for traditional FPS players to stick with. But unlike most games in the genre, it’s a bit surprising that the strongest element of Disintegration is the game’s story. An FPS about humans in brain only seems like a tough place to find emotional resonance, but Disintegration works hard to characterize its crew whether flesh or metal.

“The units on the ground are people. They are brains in robotic armatures,” Low said. “You’re going to develop cut scene story arcs with these people you’re going to come to care for them and then take them out on the missions with you. They’re not just noises on the ground, they’re important parts of the story.”

People who learn the game through the campaign will connect with that story, and there’s a surprising amount of heft to it. But the success of Disintegration will largely be determined by how many people take to the game’s multiplayer. That, however, will rely much more on whether they value the combat style more than the characters in their crew.

When it comes to the civil unrest in the US at the moment, some artists have made their voices heard through their work. HER is now one of them: She kicked off her iHeartRadio Living Room Series set with a new song, “I Can’t Breathe.” The soulful track is heavy, as HER sings on the chorus, “I can’t breathe / You’re taking my life from me / I can’t breathe / Will anyone fight for me?”

Introducing the song and her performance overall — which took place at a Brooklyn recording studio with a full band — she said:

“I really want to recognize all of the people across various communities that are promoting justice and equality and peace and passion. We need that unity right now, so this first song is called ‘I Can’t Breathe.’ Just by the title, you know that it means something very painful and very revealing, and I think it’s necessary. These lyrics were kind of easy to write because it came from a conversation of what’s happening right now, what’s been happening, and the change that we need to see. I think music is powerful when it comes to change and when it comes to healing, and that’s why I wrote this song, to make a mark in history. And I hope this song does that.”

Watch HER’s full performance above.